6 Short Stories Read online

  6 Short Stories

  By

  Robert T. Jeschonek

  *****

  Also by Robert T. Jeschonek

  6 Scifi Stories

  6 More Scifi Stories

  6 Scifi Stories Book 3

  6 Fantasy Stories

  6 More Fantasy Stories

  7 Comic Book Scripts

  7 More Comic Book Scripts

  *****

  6 Short Stories

  *****

  Wave A White Flag

  The doilies were first; of that much, Henry was certain. And then, for contrast, for a change of pace, the bowling ball. First, doilies, fluffy spinning lace sliding through the air like snowflakes, catching breezes that would swing them wide and up and wild as stringless kites. Then, when the fish on the sidewalk were giggling and sighing and spreading their tiny arms to catch the pretty things, a surprise! Out of the sky, a speck among the drifting frills--that's all they would see at first, of course, just a speck. Smooth and shiny and plunging like a holy comet, it would arc and flume straight down, flash by the stupid doilies, maybe kill some birds on the way before it HIT one, splattered some fool with her arms out to catch, thinking it was a doily but in for a rude awakening because it's a BOWLING BALL all along and she's on her way to meet Jesus Christ. And if Henry could aim right, put just the right backspin on it, maybe he could take out a whole crowd of them, plow down five or ten like real bowling pins in an alley. It would be best if the crowd was all old ladies or shitfaced rowdy kids.

  Or maybe the cedar chest would be better. He would have more of a chance of crushing someone with that, of cracking a whole flock like a bunch of nuts. Rubbing his chin, he considered the chest, imagined the heavy wood box dropping down eight floors, the lid flying open, maybe snapping off to leave a tail of trash. Out would fly the photo albums, shooting out and flapping in the wind like paper birds failing to fly, shitting snapshots and pages all the way down; then, at the sixth floor, the clippings would emerge--graduations, weddings, and obituaries shredding, confetti in the sky. By the fifth floor, out would tumble flowers, dessicated roses and corsages disintegrating under the sun; letters, yearbooks, medals at the fourth; at the third floor, his uniform would leap out, and her wedding dress puffing up big and round as a parachute; souvenirs at the second--postcards, flashlights, key rings from places he had forgotten; before the big smash would come fittingly the wills, typed tidy packets popping over the rim with the old green teddy bear close behind; and then a CRASH (maybe a peep, he didn't know, if the poor dummies realized they were standing under a lifetime); and finally nothing, just a flutter and rustle as all the goddamned memories rippled down around them, into their blood, soaking it up into papers and dresses like paper towels absorbing Kool-Aid.

  As for the baby's finger, Henry wasn't really sure where it would be. Probably, it would settle on top like a cherry, only not red anymore after fifty-two years, just white white tiny like a tooth. The little velvet ring case she kept it in would shatter, spitting it right on top of the pile, turning up again like it always did. Yesterday, she had it in the bathroom, as if he needed to see it again, and he noticed the little gray case as he was pulling down his pants and tried to flush it away with his crap. Wheezing and quivering, she had saved it at the last second, punched her shriveled blue arm into the bowl and dug it out like it was still attached to someone. He watched her like TV and thought the old woman might die from the way her veins stuck out.

  Henry just wanted to get rid of it all, to throw it all out and be done with it for good. It served no purpose anymore for him...and for her, too, though she savagely clung to each bit. It was all gone, all past, all slipping away, so why fight it? He was tired of staring at old photos of people who were dead over ten years ago. He was tired of seeing snapshots of young strangers Helen insisted were them, when he knew damn well they were not. He was tired of living in the same world that made him think of things he could never have or do.

  Last Tuesday was the last time Henry had enjoyed himself, the last time he had laughed and felt good. Oh, what a pleasure, what a landmark day it had been! It was warm, like tonight, and when he limped to the windowsill, a high half-moon lit up just for him. In his arms, he felt an ache as he inched open the window, but when he carried over the box of books and flung them into the night, there wasn't a twinge. There was simply a surge, an incredible, hot surge like whiskey drowning his body, heat so pure and exhilarating that the books weren't enough. Even as the box shot downward, plunging to the sidewalk like an elevator with no cable, he was hopping into the kitchen, grabbing the toaster, rushing as fast as he could toward the moonlight. Out it went, gleaming and rattling, electrical cord whipping behind it...then the best, the biggest yet! By the time Helen awakened and stumbled into the room, the TV had exploded below, erupting in a geyser of glittering fine chips--glass, tubes, wires, metal, and wood screeching back up and out in a fountain, then down, washing down everywhere in a far beautiful tidal wave. Then, Helen grabbed him and clawed him back from the masterpiece, away from the window in a sexless tumble. Henry smiled because she had been whimpering over the finger again.

  Unfortunately, there weren't any fish out last Tuesday, no black mollies swiveling past to plaster. Bad timing, though the moon was perfect, and he knew it as soon as that first toss but was so excited that he just kept going. Pretty soon, there were plenty down there, though, squinting old cripples in slippers pointing up, even some policemen who came up to visit. That night, they threatened to weld shut his windows, but he sat on the rocker and said he'd only break the glass if they did. He called the cop a son of a bitch and went off to bed, leaving whimpering Helen to entertain the neighbors.

  What a night it had been! Best of all, there was time for more, certainly days enough for more heat and heroic throws. In his body, in this place, he realized there were few chances for anything else, few years to find something elating again. The wheat years were over, his twisted legs whispered, the sun months traded to another part of the Earth. Find what fun your sloughing body can, feel the blood rush, neck hairs tremble. Don't rot.

  Tonight, it was warm out there again, and a crescent moon sang Patti Page, and Henry knew it was time for more goodbyes. In the beige box bedroom of the cramped apartment, he gazed out the window and nodded; from the top, royal rampart of the building, it would come, it would come, it would rain from his hands.

  First, the doilies, he decided, and then the bowling ball and THEN the cedar chest. All or nothing, shoot the moon. Yes, that would be nice.

  Turning away from the glittering great window, Henry started to gather things up. There were doilies on the dressers, both of them, and he tugged them carefully off, holding back all the junk on top with one arm. Next, he laid the lacy things on his bed, which was closest to the window, and walked past both beds to the closet. Humming, he slid open the folding, slatted door, and got down on his knees. He pushed aside dangling curtains of clothing and reached into a corner for the bowling ball. It felt familiar to sink three fingers in the cool, smooth holes of the ball, and before he put it on the bed, he pretended to hurl it down an alley.

  The cedar chest was already near the window, so he wouldn't need to drag it across the room. Just a lift, a step, a push, and it would fly, finally soar free and bold into the night. But what else? Looking slowly around the bedroom, Henry realized he needed more, he should have many things to sling off into heaven. There had to be a magazine, a clip, ammunition to carry off the battle, enough junk to heap and handle and snatch from when he got started.

  In finding more things to throw, there was surely no problem. All over, an abundance of useless garbage waited, covered shelves and dressers and counters and just slumped and rotted until it would
be towed out with their dead bodies. An early exit would delight it, Henry knew, would free all the stuff in a glorious brave blaze that all the clothing and pottery and furniture in the seven floors of cubbyholes beneath them would envy and long for forever.

  From the sad way her eyes tipped downward, Henry was sure that the ceramic statue of the Virgin Mary on Helen's dresser would want to leave. Mary was a foot high, draped in blue robes with a dusty gold halo behind her head; her hands were spread wide with palms opened outward…welcoming, resigned, or surrendering. Henry grabbed her and dropped her on the bed.

  Shoes, he needed shoes--and why not the clock? Flushing, he scooped two ancient pairs of black wingtips from the closet floor and snapped the noisy round alarm clock with the glow-in-the-dark face from the little nightstand between the beds. Then, he headed into the living room to harvest more ammunition.

  Of course, Helen was out there. Sitting in her soft brown armchair, she faced the spot where the TV had been, as if she thought it would magically reappear. Like a dog, she was trained to stare at the same spot, just as she was taught to always look and talk and act in the same way, to become her long-dead mother. In fact, she even looked like her mother, she WAS the old bitch, except for the tube in her throat--which made her WORSE than her mother.

  Even now, while she dozed in the chair, the tube was still in place, emerging from her gorge like plumbing. Right out of her it stuck, a tiny white pipe a half-inch long, mounted in a padded plastic collar that circled her neck, covering over at least one crumpled blue section of skin so Henry didn't have to look at it. Four months ago, the doctors had given them that tube, Henry remembered, they had sliced her windpipe open to save her life and oh THANK GOD they did, because now there was a little sewer leading out of her, a spigot that could pour all the slime and goop and ugliness up out of her heart and all over the miserable apartment they had moved into and better yet all over miserable him. Every time he looked at that pipe, that hole leading out of her body, he felt sick and angry and hateful, so he guessed it was doing the trick, finally and fully bringing the two of them together.

  For a moment, Henry scanned the room, deciding on and then rejecting various objects. The short sofa was out, since it took two people to carry and even though his heart was thumping and he felt pretty damn capable, he didn't think he could quite get it into the bedroom and over the windowsill. Sometime, maybe the next time, the sofa would have to go, the cushions and foam rubber and hard dark wood flattening gangs of sidewalk fish; he could get a dolly, probably, or maybe have casters put on the legs, pay some furniture repairman to come in and install them just so he could roll the thing around the apartment and out the window and down down DOWN.

  The stubby wood end table was a possibility, but it was right beside Helen and her tube, and he definitely did not want to wake her up. But the lamps--ah, the lamps were perfect! There was one on Helen's end table and one on the floor where the TV had been; it used to sit on top of the set, before Henry had fired it into the sky last Tuesday.

  Breathing fast, Henry crept to the end table and switched off the lamp, then unplugged it and gathered it in his arms. When it hit the bottom, it would surely be spectacular, since the round body was all blue glass. He pictured a fury of sparkling blue, a climbing curl of one thousand baby lights, all glitter and fire and cold sea sparks like the Fourth of July in September.

  Then, suddenly, as he was passing with his vision and the lamp into the bedroom, he heard her voice.

  "Henry," she rattled behind him. "Henry, what are you doing?"

  At the sound of her, he froze and cringed, jamming both eyes shut because she was awake and the mission wouldn't be so easy anymore. And the voice…the VOICE was awful, it made him want to run and cry far away away every time he heard it. When she spoke, she had to suck in all the air she could and put a finger over the hole and scrape out each word like a gag. It wasn't her voice at all, it was new, it was planted in her throat like fungus when the tube was put in.

  "What are you doing with the lamp?" she said, her voice low and barely recognizable, rasping like sandpaper, gurgling like the flush of a toilet. "Henry, you face me and tell me where you're going."

  Panicky, panting, Henry clutched the lamp and walked into the bedroom. Now, there could be no stopping; now was the time for windows, as all the pruny people in the apartments beneath him well knew but didn't have the balls to fulfill.

  Helen wriggled out of her chair and teetered into the bedroom after him. Her thin, mangled body moved slowly, almost without muscles under the beaten rag skin. The face above her tube was a skull, unfamiliar...tissue paper sucked into eye sockets and mouth and cheeks and every crack and pit in the bone.

  "Henry, stop it," she croaked.

  In the bedroom, Henry pushed open the window, feeling no pain this time in his scrawny, flexing arms. Like peppermint, the strong, cool air of the eighth-floor night washed in, bathing him in tingling, electrical juice. For a second, he stood and let it soothe him, envelope his petering organs with misleading vigor. Out there and up was the big pearly crescent, the finest high bullseye a man could ever aim at; down was the world, the stupid swaggering beginnings that he was long past and more than ready to erase.

  With a puff, Henry turned and grabbed the doilies. As planned, they went out first, sailing and twirling through the darkness like feathers. Wasting no time, Henry picked the bowling ball next, thrusting three fingers in the holes like Helen's blowhole. With a laugh, he stepped back from the window, brought the ball up to his chest and cupped it with both hands like he was standing in a lane. Then, he hopped forward, swinging the ball back and up with one hand…then forward and up and letting it go, heaving it out and away in the biggest godly bowling alley ever seen.

  "Henry, oh stop it, please!" burbled Helen, frantically skittering into the room. "You bastard! You've lost your mind!"

  Henry ingored her, knowing he had nothing left to lose, and nabbed the Virgin Mary. Away she went, somersaulting wildly in the sky as she was meant to, shooting up closer to where she belonged than she had ever been before. Then, the shoes, dancing daringly on floors of pure breeze…and the clock, counting minutes which would only forever be known to itself.

  Now that time was gone, there would be no stopping him.

  By the time he snagged the lamp, Helen was scratching and pulling at him, wheezing wordlessly because she had both hands on him and couldn't talk without a finger over her tube. She flailed at him, bug-eyed and blue-veined and trying desperately to drag him back--but he was soaring and rushing and understood everything and would not be stopped this time from getting rid of it all...all the dusty trash that was rotting them both from the inside of their skulls and was better off plunging through the sky.

  Henry bent down and lifted one end of the cedar chest, propping it up with its legs sticking over the windowsill. Then, smacking Helen with the back of his hand, he grabbed the other end of the chest; grunting, he raised it slowly from the floor, and with one flaming pulse shoved it triumphantly into space. Watching over the sill as his heart hammered, he saw the chest rip open and everything scatter in the air as he had imagined. In the flashing red lights from below, the chest and papers and dresses and memories seemed to catch fire as they flew.

  In the beautiful, slow-motion moments that followed, Henry took out his false teeth and lobbed them out there, too. He noticed the little gray ring case on the dresser and flicked it fittingly after.

  Helen fingered her tube and started to scream at him, and someone started pummeling the apartment door. Soon, they would all be in there, poking and shouting and threatening, maybe taking him away. But it was all all right. Everything was going, now or later...tonight, last Tuesday, or next week, spinning and twisting and racing to the ground like Japanese zeros or years.

  One more thing, he needed one more thing. Maybe himself, maybe he would dive out there himself, leap weightlessly toward the moon and maybe brush it with his fingertips before descending. Everythin
g had to go eventually, including himself, so why not get it over with? Why not let the wind sing women through his eyes, the dark breeze ruffle his skin like a loose shirt while he floated so Christlike from above?

  Instead, he turned to Helen, who was scratching and weeping behind him, drawing blood from his shoulders and every now and then scraping out some insult. In a wrinkled, swift sweep, he clutched her tube, then jerked it out of her throat. He pulled it so hard and twisted his hand so the tube dug out gristle and blood, and he snapped the brace from around her toothpick neck.

  Out it went, goodbye garbage and zoom to the moon, and good riddance and thanks for the best all night. As Helen choked and bled on the floor, Henry crossed the room and walked away from the window.

  Tonight, he would shave before bed.

  *****

  The Day of the Mad Shitter

  The Mad Shitter's rampage started right around the time that Mike Shomo lost his cool.

  Until the Mad Shitter came along, the men's room on the third floor was a relatively sanitary place. A safe place. Sure, guys would dribble outside the urinals and occasionally leave an unwanted gift in an unflushed commode...but Joe Prine rarely felt uncomfortable using the facilities. When his 9 a.m. movement rolled around, he would enter a stall, pull the door closed, build a nest of toilet paper on the seat, and get to work. Sometimes, he would even find that the toilet was unused, the water in the bowl still blue with cleaning solution from the janitorial staff's efforts of the night before.

  But the Mad Shitter changed all that. The Mad Shitter was like some kind of monster.

  The fact that he always flushed the toilet when he was done was like a joke. He would clear the bowl, but the commode itself would be a disaster area.